2018’s Top 15 Eye-catching Corrections

by January 05, 2019 05:00 PM EST

15. Controversial columnist Katie Hopkins was detained in South Africa in 2018. But the UK Mirror had to correct after saying she was detained because of ketamine use. The Mirror‘s wrote:

“A previous version of this article suggested that Katie Hopkins was stopped from leaving South Africa because of the consumption of Ketamine. We are happy to clarify that Ms Hopkins was detained for spreading racial hatred, which took place after the Ketamine incident.”

“Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly located Brooklyn in the Canadian province of Quebec. It is in New York.”

13. Iraq or a rock? The Wall Street Journal thought Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Moses got water from Iraq, when he actually said a rock. The March 28 correction reads:

“An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Benjamin Netanyahu said Moses brought water from Iraq. He said the water was brought from a rock. (March 28)”

12. The Washington Post made an odd correction about razors in an article about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s friend Mark Judge. An update on the Sept. 17 article, “What the man accused of being part of Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault had to say about women’s sexuality,” read:

“An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Judge considered safety razors too feminine. He took issue with disposable razors, and considered safety razors very masculine.”

11. Crow necrophilia. Yup. The New York Times‘s July 19 story “Why are some crows committing acts of necrophilia,” earned an eye-catching correction reading:

“Correction: July 19, 2018: An earlier version of this article incorrectly described a behavior of crows exposed to crow corpses. Live crows only touch, attack and attempt intercourse with crow corpses, they do not scavenge them.”

“An article on Friday about new fraud charges filed against Paul Manafort in the special counsel investigation misidentified Donald Trump Jr. He is President Trump’s son, not his son-in-law.”

9. Don’t get your snakes mixed up. The Times of Londonreported on the death of a snake handler at the Moulin Rouge this fall, but the Moulin Rouge was upset that readers thought one of its snakes made the fatal bite. The Times of London’s correction reads:

“The Moulin Rouge has asked us to clarify that the boa constrictor which bit a snake handler who later died (World, Sep 24) was the handler’s own property, not one of the cabaret’s performing snakes.”

8. Clickhole is satire, not news, folks. The Washington Post, however, reported on information from Clickhole’s 2017 article “Enough Time has Passed to Reveal George W. Bush was The ‘American Idiot’ (By Billie Joe Armstrong.)” as if it were real in a July article about Pres. Trump’s planned visit to Britain and the Green Day song “American Idiot.” The Post updated its article and added this corrective editor’s note:

“Editor’s note: A previous version of this report included information about the meaning of “American Idiot” that was attributed to a Clickhole.com article. Clickhole.com is a satire site. The information has been removed from the story.”

7.Gotta be careful with browser plug-ins. The New York Times had an error in an article because a plug-in named “Millennials to Snake People,” changed “the Great Recession” to “the Time of Shedding and Cold Rocks.” The Times‘ March 7 correction reads:

“Correction: March 7, 2018 “Because of an editing error involving a satirical text-swapping web browser extension, an earlier version of this article misquoted a passage from an article by the Times reporter Jim Tankersley. The sentence referred to America’s narrowing trade deficit during “the Great Recession,” not during “the Time of Shedding and Cold Rocks.” (Pro tip: Disable your “Millennials to Snake People” extension when copying and pasting.)”

6. An NPR story made an unfortunate mistake with homophones, claiming former Donald Trump adviser Sam Nunberg called Trump a magnet. The March 1 correction:

“A previous version of this story, in which Sam Nunberg was quoted calling the president a magnet, should have said magnate.”

5. How could we forget this October correction from NPR about witches hexing tax collectors? The Oct. 24 correction reads:

“A previous Web introduction to this story incorrectly said that Mihaela Minca hasn’t paid taxes since the Romanian government backed down when she and fellow witches threatened to hex tax collectors. In fact, it was Minca’s mother-in-law who hexed the tax collectors.”

4. The hit song is catchy, but the Omaha World-Herald needed to check the lyrics before characterizing Sir Mix-a-Lot’s feelings for butts. In a story about rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot’s appearance at a taco fest, the World-Herald added this May correction:

Correction: An earlier version of this story referred to Sir Mix-a-Lot as a “big-butt-loving rapper.” Although Mix-a-Lot is well-known for saying he “likes big butts and he cannot lie,” he does not profess to love them. We deeply regret the error.

3. Politico opened 2018 with a doozy of a correction, confusing Lord of the Rings’ Frodo and The Godfather’s Fredo in a Jan. 3 article about the “falling out” between Pres. Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. The article wrongly reported Steve Bannon calls Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner Frodo. The correction reads:

CORRECTION: An earlier version of the story misidentified the fictional character name Bannon uses to refer to Jared Kushner as Frodo, a “Lord of the Rings” reference, rather than Fredo, a reference to “The Godfather.”

2. This one was unforgettable. The UK Sun reported in March that “Snowflake students claim Frankenstein’s monster was ‘misunderstood’ — and is in fact a victim.” The Sun‘s report stirred controversy and blowback, prompting the Sun to apologize. But not for what you might think. The Sun actually apologized to “all fictitious monsters.”

“Frankenstein’s Monster: An Apology: An article in Tuesday’s Sun suggested ‘Snowflake’ students were wrong to side with Frankenstein’s monster in the classic Mary Shelley novel. We would like to apologise to him, and all fictitious monsters, or any offence caused.”

1.In reporting on the school shooting in Parkland, Florida last February, the Associated Press made a viral error that grabbed a lot of readers’ attention. The AP reported Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said some victims’ families were “sitting shiva,” which is a Jewish mourning tradition. However, the AP reported Israel said families “sit and shiver.”